Tag: Cash Impact

Get to a Place Where You Can See Something

Written on by frain-sales

In episodes of Dual Survivor, the hosts of the show often speak of “getting to a place where you can see something.”

In the case of this Discover Channel reality series – this means getting to a place where you can see your way out (of the jungle, desert, etc.) in order to survive.

Surviving in the CPG space also means getting to a place where you can see something – results, increased revenue, what works, and what doesn’t.

Instead of climbing a tree or mountain, brand owners navigate the supply chain to release new products and packages into the marketplace.

New ideas for packaging, new product ingredients, or completely new products get into a queue.

However, these new ideas negligibly or worse yet negatively impact revenue while incurring costs with no production or sales.

Until launched in the market, these are a cost burden.

Quickly moving to a point where you can see favorable ROI is the goal.

Frain Integration specializes in getting brand owners to the market faster with more ideas with less committed capital per project.

Most importantly, our advanced approach captures revenue, previously not captured, through expedited packaging equipment delivery from our vast inventory, expertise, and manpower.

Brand owners diversify project initiatives by allocating funds towards more projects via equipment rental and leasing terms, quickly cutting off losers and dialing up production on winners.

Frain Integration has worked with numerous Fortune 100 companies to integrate completely new product packaging lines to market several months sooner than traditional methods.

Within this interim, the brands we’ve worked with have increased their capacity to find new winning combinations of packaging and product mix, while most importantly securing millions more in previously uncapitalized revenue based on timing constraints of traditional approaches.

Not every project is a winner.

But, surviving in today’s quickly evolving marketplace takes a competitive advantage of finding ways to test new ideas quickly and gain a vantage point over your competition.

Let us help you get to higher ground.

Frain’s R&D DNA

Written on by frain-sales

Research and Development (R&D), also referred to as Product Innovation, Product Development, and Product Diversification has exploded with new brands and flavors launching to market at a never-seen-before pace.

This explosion is well documented in the Craft Brewery Production over the past several years but has translated ubiquitously throughout the CPG space.

craftbeerCapture

Source: brewerassociation.org

Developing and experimenting with new products, brand diversification, and packaging is now business as usual, not limited to R&D service organizations.

Just as business marketers are now more often mathematicians and data scientists, CPG business professionals are now an integral part of product research, testing, data, and development.

The question now becomes:  How are you supercharging innovation and rapidly executing research-based enhancements?

We’ve witnessed this trend and expectation within our own customer base.

Our customers now more than ever are seeking an edge.  They need to propagate more ideas to the marketplace with increased speed.  They wanted to test more ideas while tying up or committing to less cash out of pocket.

In other words, our customers demanded that we do more for them, faster, for less committed investment.

In 2016, Frain responded to our customer expectations with the following key features and benefits:

  • Speed to Market: Housing a packaging equipment inventory of 9,000 machines enabled us to quickly assemble entire packaging lines for our customers in weeks, not months.
  • Rapid Deployment: Our team of approximately 50 engineers and technicians match your need with our machinery inventory and customize it quickly to meet your expectations.
  • Cash Impact: By allowing our customers to rent, lease, or buy, our customers could launch and continue/discontinue more projects as needed with less budget going towards each project monthly.

R&D projects, in particular, have embraced inventory, speed, and most importantly cash impact – as renting machinery and returning as needed is a better fit for CPG research or beta projects.  This has shifted the focus of R&D cost to R&D revenue.

In a rapidly changing consumer-centric market, the ability to meet ‘hyper’ consumer product demand- without substantial investment in capital equipment- is the key to success and maximizing ROI.

By combining equipment, expertise, and service, Frain offers a unique fulcrum within CPG R&D.

You’re Only Getting Half of the Pie

Written on by frain-sales

 

… And it’s often already stale.

Such is the case with project revenue in today’s new CPG product and packaging space.

With decisions to be made and Gantt Chart lines to come to fruition, including purchasing your new packaging machinery, you’re likely realizing only half of the year-one revenue in your forecast.

As with anything else, people become set in their ways and used to doing things the way they’ve always been done.  However, some with the right ideas, timing, and execution – can get to market quickly and capitalize with non-traditional approaches.

After working with many larger CPG brands on complete packaging lines, Frain discovered opportunities to work on a complimentary basis with new packaging equipment.  We didn’t ask brands to stop what they were doing, but instead asked them to consider capturing additional revenue that they wouldn’t otherwise realize.

Numerous times since then, Frain has complimented traditional wholesale brand revenue and standard project deployment with our rapid deployment and incremental revenue through expedited speed to market.

You could say we’re helping our customers get to the pie before anyone else, while it’s fresh.

 

 

 

Speed to Market Revenue

Written on by frain-sales

In a previous job for a fortune 500 corporation, a business partner of mine said to me, “You are an ocean liner in a bay and we’re your speed boat.”

Conceptually, his statement punctuated our symbiotic relationship whereby his company seized opportunities on behalf of my company for which they were better suited given their smaller, more nimble make up.

Like the best and largest cruise ship’s inability to port at smaller islands – many CPG companies are also unable to expedite smaller jobs, such as introducing new products or packaging redesigns.  Getting to market just a few weeks slower can add up to millions of incremental revenue left on the table to competition.

Partnerships can help CPG companies seize the day.  Agencies, consultants, and other companies within the supply chain can help circumnavigate obstacles that would otherwise impede progress, complimentary ideas, people, services, and efficiency which translate into greater revenue and market share.

At Frain, we’ve found success in partnering with customers to help them deliver new or redesigned products to market faster.  Our rapidly deployed machinery enables our customers to maximize short-term revenue through lead times that are faster than traditional equipment OEMs, while limiting risk and investment through borrowed machinery.

Whether the project fails or succeeds to gain traction within the marketplace, our customers succeed (and fail) faster and have the flexibility to return equipment or keep it as needed.

For example, when equipment lead time of 3 months is shortened to 2 weeks with Frain – our customers gain 10 weeks of revenue not gained in traditional machinery integrations or deployments.  For our customers this can yield anywhere from $5 MM to $100 MM more in incremental wholesale brand revenue depending on margins.

While the path to improving speed to market may be complex and multi-faceted for many companies, Frain provides a streamlined service within a key point of the supply chain – packaging machinery.

The chart below represents total speed to market revenue (approximately $180 MM) captured by eight Frain customers across twelve projects or deployments.

 

frain-speed-to-market-brand-revenue